I recently read a story about lenders adopting intimidating techniques on loan defaulters, no thanks to the precarious economic condition in India for the last few years, now conveniently explained away by the government as the fallout of the COVID-19 ScamDemic.
Well, despite not being a loan-taker, my car instalments being paid 10 years back, I still found myself on the receiving end of such harassment several times.
The first started when I added a friend's wife on Facebook, who had apparently defaulted on a car loan more than a decade back and fled town. The recovery agent followed her FB account as it had no privacy settings, next found my phone number from a job site where they were registered as an employment agency and unleashed 24-hour harassment via intimidating calls demanding her number and address. He even cited my home address, threatening to come over physically.
It took me a day to discover that they got my contact details from the India job site www.Naukri.com. I believe the firm's name was Lakshmi Debt Recovery Agency, unfortunately, I deleted a bunch of emails which included the one where I mentioned their full name and address in my complaint to the job portal, which incidentally didn't even elicit an automated response! It was only when I threatened them back with much more abusive language naming their agency and address did the calls stop.
Next, it was some tailor who gave a bank my landline number as his, or maybe the phone company just allocate me a disused number. It took the cooling power of an industrial refrigerator to keep my blood pressure down as I patiently explained to the utterly obnoxious woman on the phone that my sewing skills extend to darning my underwear or sewing a button. That I have absolutely no clue as to who their elusive tailor was. Yes, I even invited her for a cup to tea to my place to see for herself, mentioning that I lived alone... The creep factor always works with women, and she backed off.
Most recently, I got a call about an ex-colleague, an out-and-out conman who in his latest series of unpaid loans, defaulted on a personal bank loan taken out on his wife's name. I bluntly told them what I thought of him but asked them back how I was concerned?
"Well, you were a director in that company," they replied lamely.
" I was just an employee", I clarified "but even if I was the owner, in what way am I liable ??"
They cut the line.
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